Welcome to The A.V. Club’s monthly comics preview, where we recommend new books to check out over the next few weeks. This October, we’ve got five noteworthy picks, including a horror western, a surreal silent graphic novel, a cheeky equiphile memoir, and the return of the Bride Of Frankenstein.
Midnight Spider-Man #1 by Philip Kennedy Johnson, ScieTronc, and Neeraj Menon (October 7)
Marvel is banking on its new horror line, the Midnight Universe, in a big way, debuting all three Midnight titles as the only new releases for the first Wednesday of October. Jonathan Hickman and Matteo Della Fonte’s Midnight X-Men pits mutants against vampires, Benjamin Percy and Kev Walker’s Midnight Fantastic Four puts a Lovecraftian spin on Marvel’s first family, and Philip Kennedy Johnson and ScieTronc’s Midnight Spider-Man (Marvel)goes full body horror for Peter Parker’s superhuman transformation. Kennedy cites H.R. Giger, David Cronenberg, and Junji Ito as influences for his take on Spider-Man, and his work on The Incredible/Infernal Hulk showcases how well he blends superhero and horror elements, especially when it comes to giving his artists gnarly transformations and mutilations to visualize. ScieTronic is a new name in superhero comics, but he draws some really creepy shit that leans into how disturbing spider imagery can be. There’s a reason arachnophobia is a common fear, and it’s actually very easy to make Spider-Man a terrifying concept if you just have spiders crawling out of human bodies.
Midnight Spider-Man (Marvel)
Jonah Hex And The Shadow Of Death by Michael Walsh and Toni-Marie Griffin (October 7)
DC also starts October by leaning into horror, with two modern masters tackling two fan-favorite characters. James Harren writes and draws a new ongoing The Demon series that brings Hell to Gotham City while Michael Walsh takes readers to the Wild West with Jonah Hex And The Shadow Of Death (DC Comics), a six-issue miniseries that drags the scarred gunslinger out of retirement to fight a supernatural threat. Walsh developed incredible versatility as a horror artist by drawing different writers’ stories (as well as his own) in his The Silver Coin anthology series, and Jonah Hex gives him the opportunity to flex those muscles while bringing a specific time and place to life through his stark inks and immersive layouts. He’s joined by his The Silver Coin colorist (and wife), Toni-Marie Griffin, whose palettes reinforce the emotional beats of the story while adding texture to Walsh’s high-contrast linework. It’s a team with a deep understanding of how to build suspense on the page, creating an atmosphere of dread around one of DC’s most haunted antiheroes.
I Can’t Stop Thinking About Horses And Sex by Lisa Hanawalt (October 20)
Between her comics and her work on TV shows like Bojack Horseman and Tuca & Bertie, Lisa Hanawalt has become a top creator for comedy rooted in emotional turmoil. She turns the focus inward for her first graphic memoir, I Can’t Stop Thinking About Horses And Sex (Drawn & Quarterly), a hilarious and poignant look at her lifelong obsession with horses as well as the shifting sexual desires and frustrations she experiences as she ages. The book starts with Hanawalt buying a horse as an act of “self-care” during a particularly distressing time, and her relationship with Juni roots the book in tender sweetness before Hanawalt breaks up with her long-time partner and is overcome with horniness. Hanawalt is very frank about her romances, her anxieties about not having children, and the ways sexual trauma in her past affects her intimacy with others, and the strength of her comedic chops makes the more harrowing material hit even harder.
Wandering by Jonathan Djob Nkondo (October 21)
Scavengers Reign is one of the most intriguing animated series of the last few years, largely because of its fully fleshed-out alien environments and creature designs that create an ecosystem that is beautiful, terrifying, and eerily believable. French artist Jonathan Djob Nkondo worked in the show’s animation department, and his graphic novel, Wandering (Magnetic Press), will scratch an itch for anyone missing the sensation of being dropped into a strange new world. Told without text, the story asks readers to draw connections betweentwo men making their way through two very different environments: one walks through a bustling sci-fi city while the other traverses a sprawling desert. Each setting showcases a different facet of Nkondo’s design skills, with the city showcasing vehicles, architecture, and costuming while the desert landscape merges technical and organic elements and features wildlife composed of abstract geometric shapes. Nkondo makes powerful use of negative space in both, using big blocks of white to play with scale and tension.
Universal Monsters: The Bride Of Frankenstein Lives by Kelly Thompson and Mattia De Iulis (October 28)
Skybound has yet to miss with any of its Universal Monsters comics, assembling exceptional creative teams to revitalize iconic characters of horror cinema. The Bride of Frankenstein hasn’t had the hottest year, but she’s in good hands with Universal Monsters: The Bride Of Frankenstein Lives(Skybound), which reunites the starry team of writer Kelly Thompson and artist Mattia De Iulis. From their creator-owned series, The Cull, to their recent work on Absolute Wonder Woman, Thompson and De Iulis have developed a creative rapport that gives their comics a real spark, and it’s fitting that this book begins with a splash page of the bolt of lightning that resurrects The Bride’s patchwork corpse. The character barely appears in the original film, which provides Thompson and De Iulis with a blank slate for continuing her story, one that is rooted in men claiming ownership of women’s bodies. Thompson’s characterization of The Bride is a compelling mix of vulnerability and rage, which comes through in De Iulis’ artwork through her expressive eyes and a significant change to her defining hairstyle, turning her towering bouffant into stringy wet curls.
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